


understand - for peter

by potentiallythiswillbegay



Category: bare: A Pop Opera - Hartmere/Intrabartolo
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, Songfic, canonical character death is discussed, no beta we die like men, these three are best friends change my mind, this song hurts me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22152037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiallythiswillbegay/pseuds/potentiallythiswillbegay
Summary: After losing Jason, Nadia, Ivy and Peter try to find steady ground to stand on.Nadia shows Peter something else that Jason left behind.aka Jason wrote Peter a song but he only sees it after the play.
Relationships: Ivy Robinson & Peter Simmonds, Jason McConnell/Peter Simmonds, Nadia McConnell & Ivy Robinson, Nadia McConnell & Peter Simmonds
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	understand - for peter

**Author's Note:**

> wow, it's been a while since i've written for bare.  
> i'm beginning planning of chapter four of [coming out thing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15124535) (hopefully out soon-ish) but in the meantime have this bittersweet drabble i wrote about a year ago and never posted.  
> yes this is entirely self indulgent bc i love this song and the webseries it comes from  
> here's the [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beztpBBy8yg), the fic works well if you listen to it!  
> enjoy, lovelies!

Nadia, Ivy and Peter sat in the two girls’ dorm room on a dark night, no words being spoken between the three. What words could change what had happened? Nadia was staring at the wall, her eyes clouded over with ghosts of memories, the memories that you don’t want to look over. Ivy looked down at the blank pages of a notebook, previous pages taken up with drawings and words, but she could produce nothing but tears right now. Peter sat on his laptop, trying to do anything but think of what had happened… what he didn’t want to accept had happened. 

On the dim screen, a lone email was sitting in Peter’s inbox. Just a single unread email, dated back to March - before Jason broke up with him, before Ivy’s party - and his heart almost broke again. and again. and again. 

Because he recognised the email address that it was sent from. 

‘bluebaseballbats@gmail.com’ 

Jason’s email address. the one he used to email Peter through the holidays. The one his family didn’t know he had. The one he trusted Peter - and only Peter - with. 

He hadn’t seen it there when it first arrived, he only noticed it a month later, but out of anger at the time and sadness now, he couldn’t bear to make his fingers move to click it. But he did it anyway. 

FROM _ : bluebaseballbats@gmail.com  _

TO _ : peterpansimmonds@gmail.com  _

DATE _ : March 27th at 2:16 PM  _

SUBJECT _ : you  _

_ you’re watching me type this in drama rehearsal and giving me a really weird look but you still look cute and it’s unfair that so many people are around and I can’t kiss you until later but anyway stop staring at me and listen to Sister Chantelle.  _

_ okay I stopped typing for a second because you laughed at Lucas and I reacted as subtly as I could because my god you are cute and beautiful and I really want to be back in our dorm now.  _

_ yours, Jason _

He could feel his heart threatening to bound out of his chest as he heard a small choked sob escape his lips. 

Nadia and Ivy heard immediately, both of them making their way towards him when his hand went up to cover his mouth to muffle his breathing. 

“No, don’t do that.” Ivy gently moved his hand from his mouth, taking it between two of her own, which Peter noticed were shaking violently. Nadia read the laptop screen and closed her eyes painfully once she finished, as if being hit in the chest. 

“You need to see this.” she said after a moment, taking his laptop gently off him. He and Ivy watched on as she opened a new tab on the browser and logged into Jason’s email, his secret account. 

“How did you…“ he trailed off, watching her fingers fly over the keyboard as she entered his password. 

“I just noticed.” she whispered, going through a few pages before opening a single video file. 

“Is that… Jason?” Ivy’s words were barely loud enough to hear as she clung to Peter and stared at the thumbnail. 

“It was during spring break. he asked me to help him with something, and I didn’t realise what it was until now. He said it was to hear his own singing, said it didn’t mean anything, but-“ Nadia’s voice cracked, but she looked up at Peter and kept speaking, “It was all for you. I didn’t know if he had… if you got it, but you need to see it. I had thought- I didn’t want to freak him out by telling him…” she shook her head and cut off as her voice gave out, passing the laptop to Peter and sitting herself next to Ivy silently. 

The video was titled ‘understand – for peter’. it was dated back to… the week after their breakup. 

“He hadn’t named it when we did it.” Nadia whispered, leaning into Ivy. 

Peter clicked the video. 

The screen was black until- 

_ ‘please keep those old memories of us’  _

Jason –  _ Jason  _ – stood in the middle of an empty room, sunset lighting illuminating him beautifully. Nadia was sat in the background, a guitar in her lap. and Jason was singing. 

_ ‘they’ll bring happy thoughts to you’  _

His voice was beautiful- something Peter had always told him on the rare occasion he would sing for him. 

_ ‘you say you hate me now’  _

No, no… how could Peter go back in time and tell him that ‘no, I don’t hate you, I love you, please come  _ back to me  _ ’? 

_ ‘but stupid people do stupid things,’  _

How could Peter be so oblivious to what Jason was going through in his head… 

_ ‘when they’re so much in love’  _

“Jason…” Ivy breathed out, watching the screen with tears running down her face. Nadia opened her arms and Ivy leaned into her immediately. 

Peter couldn’t take his eyes off Jason. 

_ ‘I wish you could understand’  _

Jason looked so… defeated. as if everything was gone. 

Peter wished he didn’t know that look so well. 

_ ‘I wish you could understand’  _

That was the look Jason had on his face when Peter turned down his offer to run away, that night. 

_ ‘your love isn’t guaranteed’  _

Peter felt tears welling in his eyes, but he wiped them away so he could watch Jason on the screen. 

Jason, who was wearing the sweater that Peter once stole. dark blue, it brought out his eyes, which Peter loved on Jason and felt like he was swimming in when he wore it. 

_ ‘but I love you desperately’  _

Jason’s confessions of love were rarer than Peter’s, whispered words under blankets and behind firmly locked doors, making that line all the more painful. 

His eyes were closed as he sang that line, but when they opened they were never looking at the camera, or Nadia, but instead staring out into space as if singing directly to Peter. and he felt it. 

_ ‘so, baby, take me by the hand again’  _

Peter knew that he shouldn’t be reminiscing so much on what he couldn’t change, but he couldn’t help but stare into Jason’s eyes and wish he was still here. 

_ ‘this love thing’s not so easy’  _

Jason looked down then, finally moving his head, and Peter wanted to be there to hold him like he had so many nights before. 

“I didn’t know you played guitar, I thought it was only the cello.” Ivy was whispering to Nadia. 

“It was a secret; my parents didn’t allow it. but Jason knew…” Nadia’s shoulders shook as she held Ivy, keeping one hand on Peter’s. 

Jason in the video moved his head slightly in rhythm of the guitar, a quiet defeat screaming through his actions. 

_ ‘everything I do, I think of you’  _

Did Jason know that Peter didn’t know how to function without him? waking up in a cold room alone, finding no warmth, seeing his name around the school, hearing whispers of his name amongst both friends and strangers, being around Nadia, Ivy, Lucas, Tanya… and none of them knowing what to do. 

_ ‘do you still love me too?’  _

Peter didn’t think he could ever stop loving Jason. 

His hands were tense, one of them entwined with Ivy and Nadia’s hands, the other one slowly clenching until he could feel his nails in his hand to ground himself. 

_ ‘if I don’t ask, you might forget the answer’  _

When he wrote this… did Jason think that was the last they would ever have to do with each other? Peter had just moved out of their dorm room, and he thought he would never speak to Jason again. 

But did Jason think Peter could ever forget about him? 

_ ‘I wish you could understand’  _

Peter wished he could know what Jason was thinking. When he broke up with him, when he was with Ivy, when he sang this, when he was outed, when he collapsed at the play. 

_ ‘I wish you could understand’  _

Isn’t that the torture of life? Not being able to know those around you, even when it’s too late to even have a chance of trying? 

_ ‘your love isn’t guaranteed’  _

Throughout everything that happened, of all of the outcomes that he could have predicted, this was not one of them. It wasn’t one he ever wanted to predict, not for Jason, not for himself, not for the people around them. 

_ ‘but I love you desperately’  _

A small part of Peter’s brain wanted to be angry at Jason, as hurtful as that was to admit. 

_ ‘so, baby, take me by the hand again’  _

He wanted to be angry that he would never be able to hold him again, never be able to hear his voice again, never be able to see him laugh, smile, relax or  _ live  _ again. 

_ ‘this love thing’s not so easy’  _

“I wish I knew to give it to you earlier…” Nadia whispered, her voice lacking the strength to go any louder. 

“I can’t believe he did this.” Ivy looked gently towards peter, tears running down her face and choking her words. 

_ ‘and I love you, more than you could ever know how to love’  _

Jason had told him that he loved him right before they went on stage that night, as if he knew he wouldn’t get another chance. He would’ve known that he was leaving peter with a broken heart… but what was he escaping from? Was it worth it, for Peter to now be left without his soulmate? 

_ ‘and I got lost along the way, I’m sorry, babe’  _

They had gone through so much in one year, was it all supposed to end up like this? Were all of their tears just leading to this point? Or did all of their fights lead to this? 

_ ‘your love isn’t guaranteed’  _

How could he put it so perfectly into words, everything that they had suffered through at that point? The rift that had been created between them was tearing everything they knew apart. Did Jason realise this as well? 

_ ‘but I love you desperately’  _

Nadia and Ivy’s hands on his own suddenly felt very present, and he realised that although he was in love with Jason and had been for years, Ivy had lost a close friend and the father of her child, and Nadia had lost her the one person she had in her home, her twin brother. 

He wasn’t the only one hurting. 

_ ‘so, baby, take me by the hand again’  _

Jason on the screen was suffering, it was clear in his eyes whenever he opened them. He was hurting, badly. 

“He’s in pain.” Ivy whispered, taking the thoughts out of Peter’s brain. 

“I know.” Nadia held on tighter to their joined hands. 

“Was this all… him?” Peter spoke roughly, the first words out of his lips since seeing Jason on the screen. 

“He wrote it all. I did the guitar, that’s it.” Nadia nodded sadly. 

_ ‘this love thing’s not so easy’  _

“We couldn’t have done anything, could we?” Peter pushed his voice to be firmer, less of a breath. 

“He didn’t let us. I tried, believe me, I did.” Nadia stared at her brother on the screen, joining the other two in tears. 

_ ‘this love thing’s not so easy’  _

Jason on the screen sighed and turned his head, nodding to Nadia on the guitar and smiling sadly, in a way that only those close to him could have realised. 

“Peter, are yo-“ Nadia’s words got cut off by Peter’s embrace, his arms around both her and Ivy’s shoulders. 

“Thank you for showing me this.” He whispered, letting the tears finally fall. 

Nadia couldn’t meet his eyes. “He was yours,  _ this  _ was yours.” 

“You both lost him as well.” Peter released both of them, his hands going to his throat as his sobs got thicker, “It’s not just me.” 

Ivy broke down then, burying her face in Peter's shoulder. Nadia swore under her breath as both her and Peter wrapped their arms around the shaking girl. 

“How am I supposed to raise this baby?” Ivy sobbed. 

“We're here however you need, I promise.” Nadia choked out, tears streaming down her face. “You’re not alone, Ivy. We’re here.” She ran a hand gently through the crying girl’s hair, meeting Peter’s eyes and seeing the tears running down his cheeks matching her own. 

The three of them sat there for a while, holding each other and crying, until Ivy stopped shaking and Nadia spoke again. 

“I want to talk about him at graduation.” She whispered, leaning back. 

“Really, Nadia?” Ivy sniffled, watching the other girl swallow and nod. 

“Not everyone was there. And I’m not letting him be forgotten.” 

“Then I will as well. I’ll speak.” Peter spoke, ignoring the fears in his mind (which sounded a lot like Jason).

“I… I’ve been avoiding him, because of what happened, but I know Matt wanted to talk about him too, since he now has the valedictorian speech to do.” Ivy spoke shakily.

“I’ll talk to Sister Chantelle. After… this, she’ll let us. We’re not letting him be forgotten, or brushed aside.” Peter said, the strength in his voice holding as the girls both looked at him. Nadia smiled sadly, roughly wiping away her tears with the sleeve of her sweater, and reaching a hand out to hold Peter’s. Silence fell over them again, until Ivy spoke.

“Peter?”

“Yeah?”

“How long were you two together?”

Peter sat up at that, looking at Ivy in concern. “Ivy, are you sure?”

Ivy squeezed his hand to cut him off. “You lost the boy you were in love with. I want to remember the happier times, and I want to know what you two never felt you could tell us. I’m not angry with you. You're one of my best friends.”

Peter looked at her and Nadia, seeing two soft smiles, and began talking.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is [here](http://wlwillex.tumblr.com/) if you want to follow and see me cry about everything ever


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